Monday, 31 December 2012

Henrik Samuelsson’s
first career WHL hat-trick led the Edmonton Oil Kings to a 6-2 victory over the
Brandon Wheat Kings on Monday night.

Samuelsson also
added an assist for the Oil Kings in the first meeting between Edmonton and
Brandon since the Oil Kings swept the Wheat Kings in the second round of the
Western Hockey League playoffs last spring.

Edmonton seemed
to toy with the Wheat Kings for large portions of the contest, particularly in
the second period when the Oil Kings outshot Brandon 18-9 including a 13-1
margin until the marketing break midway through the period.

“It just seemed
like our belief really got lost as they kept coming and kept coming,” said
Brandon coach Dwayne Gylywoychuk on CKLQ’s post-game show, “Our belief and how
we deal with adversity really came out today, and we have to do a lot better
job at it.”

Keegan Lowe added
a pair of goals and Mitchell Moroz also scored for Edmonton as they improved
their Eastern Conference leading record to 25-8-2-3.

Tim McGauley and
Richard Nejezchleb scored for the Wheat Kings while Corbin Boes stopped 30
shots in the Brandon net.

Brandon’s efforts
in Monday’s contest were hampered by an ineffective power-play, which finish
0-for-6 on the night and is now 1-for-20 in their last six games and have fallen
to 20th overall in the WHL this season with a 15.4% success rate.

The Wheat Kings
had a pair of power-play chances before the game was 7 ½ minutes old and still
scoreless, and a pair of 5-on-3 opportunites late in the second period with the
Oil Kings leading by a 4-1 score.

In fact, Brandon
is 2-for-12 on 5-on-3 power-play opportunities for the season.

“We’re out of
synch. We’re not communicating together, we’re not doing our bread-and-butter
plays where the puck does the work, we’re not doing our rotations where we’re making
the PK work to us instead of the PK working to what we’re doing,” said Gylywoychuk,
“We got ourworked almost every power-play we had tonight, we’ve got to able to spread
things out, let the puck do the work, have some entries with speed and take
advantage of having the extra guy out there.”

Overall this
season, Brandon has allowed 27 more power-play and shorthanded goals against
(54) than they’ve scored and after starting the season 8-for-27 with the man
advantage in their first four games, the team is 18-for-142 (12.7%) in the last
35 games.

The loss leaves
the Wheat Kings with a 14-21-2-2 record and in 11th-place in the
Eastern Conference, three points behind eighth-place Moose Jaw for the final
playoff spot.

Chaff...Brandon F Michael Ferland left the game in the second period with what appeared to be a knee injury and did not return...Wheat Kings’ F Alessio Bertaggia finished the
round-robin at the World Junior Hockey Championship in Ufa, Russia with two
goals and four points in four games, helping Switzerland advance to the medal
round.The Swiss play Russia in
Wednesday’s quarter-finals...Wheat Kings’ F Jayce Hawryluk was the Team West
Player of the Game in their 6-4 loss to Finland Monday at the World Under-17
Hockey Challenge in Quebec.Hawryluk has
pointless in the contest for 0-and-3 Team West...Brandon F John Quenneville and Team Pacific fell 6-3
to Sweden Monday at the World Under-17 Hockey Challenge, dropping their record
to 1-1-0-0.

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About Me

I have been the voice of the Brandon Wheat Kings and Sports Director at CKLQ Radio in Brandon since 1993.
The purpose of my blog is to provide you with up-to-date Wheat Kings' news and items.
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